Perfect
by leah-chan
Summary: Fleur, he life, and what happened at the Yule Ball (SLASH! Fleur/Cho)


This is *slash* - if the thought of girls liking/kissing/snuggling/dancing with other girls makes you physically ill - don't read this. And sure as hell don't review it.  
  
  
Perfect  
  
--  
Sometimes is never quite enough  
If you're flawless, then you'll win my love  
Don't forget to win first place  
Don't forget to keep that smile on your face  
  
Be a good boy  
Try a little harder  
You got to measure up  
And make me prouder.  
  
How long before you screw it up  
How many times do I have to tell you to hurry up  
With everything I do for you  
The least you can do is keep quiet.  
  
-"Perfect" by Alanis Morisette  
--  
  
Perfect  
  
She was dancing. Fleur loved to dance - and the flickering lamplight around her glowed and swirled like thousands of shooting starts. She was surrounded by the twinkling lights - bewitched ceiling, tiny fires, glittering walls. The world was beautiful, alive, and wonderful around her. Still, she was far from happy.  
  
She was young and lovely, charming and clever, as close to perfect as was humanly possible. Or so people told her.  
  
She hadn't thought much of it, really. It was always sort of assumed. Like a cloud of silver that simply hung about her. One that everyone in the world could see. Everyone but her. The people that surrounded her lived lightly - afraid to breathe too deeply - less they be suffocated by the shimmering powder.  
  
No one dared touch her. She was so delicate, so thin and frail, made of finely spun glass. Too much pressure, anything to excess, and she would shatter. So, she was more kept than loved, more tended than nurtured. It was its own form of neglect, in a way, no less damaging that harsh words or real pain.  
  
In turn, only the highest was expected from her. Top of the class? Naturally. Most popular student? One mustn't forget she's part veela. School champion? Who else could you choose?  
  
Make the family proud. Don't stop smiling. We have the highest standards, live up to them. Don't associate with those below you. Don't settle for second best. Don't forget, darling, that you're perfect.  
  
Perfect.  
  
So she laughed, and she danced, and she smiled that immaculate smile. She looked how they wanted her to look. She learned what they wanted her to learn. She acted like they wanted her to act.  
  
She was flawless.  
  
She lived in a world without joy, but that was the price she had to pay. She was destined for great things. She could be happy then.  
  
No matter how long she waited, "then" never seemed to come. Not when she was accepted to Beauxbatons. Not when she was named best student six years in a row. Not when she was chosen as Beauxbatons' Champion. Not even then.  
  
The ideal teenager, when she was hidden from the eyes of those who adored her and those who hated her, wept silently each night. She was careful not to get swept away and lament until dawn when her crystal clear eyes would become bloodshot and unattractive. Still, she cried. Cried in an effort to wash away the ice around her heart. Cried for the friends that she knew she'd never really had. Cried for the little girl that was to follow in her footsteps.  
  
She wanted to keep Gabrielle from all that. Protect her, love her, hide her away from the world that lay in wait for her.  
  
She couldn't, though, couldn't stop them at all. Just as she couldn't break away from the flowers and lace that decorated the walls of her prison.  
  
She thought of all this in that moment. Her life waltzed before her eyes as she twirled to the music that reverberated in her ears. Unshed tears burned her eyes as her feet barely touched the floor. She wouldn't cry here, no. The family dignity kept the regret at bay.  
  
The song ended, and she flashed a smile at her partner before she bowed out of the next dance. "I muss go zo zee powdér rom. Escuse moi." She swayed delicately as she walked. Perfect charm-school grace. She felt the eyes of the room on her as she exited, but she was used to the feeling. The old veela magic her mother had forced her to perfect.  
  
She would have given anything, everything, to not have inherited that part of her bloodline. It was useless to her. Completely and utterly useless. It only attracted men, and that wasn't what she really wanted.  
  
She liked females. It was that simple. Not that it made her life any easier. She had to work to keep up appearances. Always a dizzying line of men. New one every week. No love, no commitment. Nothing. Her partner tonight was just another one of the masses. No one she'd truly give a second glance. He wasn't even her first choice.  
  
Her first choice was here with...  
  
She couldn't bring herself to think about it. The black hair, those perfect almond-shaped eyes, that soft, full mouth, they called to her. She was helplessly pulled towards the Ravenclaw, and she couldn't face it. Knowing there was something different about herself was a far cry from feeling like *that*.  
  
It was another thing on the long list she had to cover up. Only, this one refused to be shoved into the recesses of her mind like she wanted, needed, it to. It fought its way to the foreground, struggling against everything she'd been told.  
  
She was going to marry a wealthy man. She was in love with a girl from a family her parents resented. She was faultless. She was pushing away the one thing she wanted. She was untouchable. She would do anything for just one kiss.  
  
It was tearing her apart. Chipping away and cracking the wall of ice that kept the silver-haired girl from the world. To have what she wanted would be to fly in the face of everything her life was built upon.  
  
She sashayed into the powder room, tears pooling in her icy blue eyes, only to discover the object of her affection sitting on a velour couch in the corner. She drew in a breath sharply, holding back the water that stung her eyes, haughty attitude ready at a moment's notice. Cho only glanced up, her brown eyes glistening in the torchlight.  
  
"Hey." She offered a half-formed smile. There were moist tracks that streaked down her pale cheeks, and Fleur stepped towards her before she realized she was moving at all.  
  
"'ey..." She said softly, softer than she had really meant to. "'r you, how do zey say eet, Oh-k?" Cho looked genuinely surprised by the show of compassion, but recovered enough to shake her head.  
  
"Not really... I -" She paused thoughtfully, "It's Cedric. You see, he thinks... Oh, I can't-" She sighed, and Fleur found herself a few feet closer than she had been a moment before.  
  
"I am sure zat you will be alrigh' - a brigh' girl like you." A faint crimson colored Cho's cheeks.  
  
"Oh - but that's the problem. Everything will work out and we'll be right back where we were before. It's just that it's not what I want." She looked exasperated. Fleur wanted to help her. Wanted desperately to do anything to make the tears disappear. She was sitting besides the dark-haired girl now, she realized.  
  
"What is eet zat you want?" The look on Cho's face was unreadable at best, and Fleur felt her stomach lurch. There was silence. A nervous tension pulsed through the air stetting her more and more on edge, before the other girl shattered it completely with laughter. A little giggle, really, but it resounded like music to Fleur's ears. She had made this girl laugh. Through some unwitting action, she had caused someone happiness - however fleeting.  
  
"This, in all my imaginings, was not how I had pictured the ball. Crying my eyes out in the bathroom and baring my soul to you." The raven-haired girl's smile was reflected in Fleur's own. "I mean, you're so - distant." Fleur cringed slightly. "Oh! I'm so sorry - I... I didn't mean it as anything. What I meant to say was - I've always admired you. You're so - perfect. It's more like you're so far out of my league and... You get the gist, right?" Fleur nodded.  
  
"I see..." She was so confused, lost at this admission. Couldn't the other girl see that it was exactly the other way around?  
  
"You do? Cedric always said I was just being silly..." The Ravenclaw seeker sighed, muscles that she had unconsciously clenched relaxing. Fleur's stomach lurched once more. Him, again.  
  
"Zis Cedrík, he does not seem zo treet you-"  
  
"No, it's nothing like that... We're not even-" Cho stopped, searching blue eyes for - something. "He's my best friend. That's it. We came with each other because we couldn't take who we really wanted to." She blushed. Fleur's mind raced, her heart fluttered in a way she'd never felt before, and she was both anxious and petrified of what Cho was going to say next. "Cedric wanted to take Potter, and I really wanted to take - you." Fleur's fluttering heart skipped a beat as she let out the breath she didn't know she'd been holding.  
  
"Moi? Cho I-"  
  
"Forget I ever said anything, please, I didn't-" But Fleur completely ignored the plea from the other girl as she leaned close to her ear and whispered.  
  
"I understand, mon cheri, I feel exacly ze same way."  
  
Cho pulled back slightly out of shock before she leveled her eyes with Fleur's. It was there - that spark that lit both their eyes, and the ice was melted away by the heat of the gaze.  
  
Their lips touched and they melted into the embrace. Both could barely feel where she stopped and the other girl began. Fleur felt complete. The tiny fractures, the cracks that danced across the surface of her broken soul, where being mended. Cho's warmth was seeping into her cold heart as they clung together, both fearing that if they let go the world would shatter all around them.  
  
She knew it couldn't be public. They both knew. She understood that her life was not her own until she was freed from the frosted palace her family had built up around her. When the night ended, she would go back to her dance partner, and Cho would go back to Cedric.  
  
Still, she clung to what was happening, memorizing every detail of the other witch. She held fast to the promise of the next day, the stolen moments to come, the future. Their future.  
  
Cho fumbled in her robes a bit before she fished out her wand, smiling giddily. With a word she locked the door, and with another she conjured music. A slow song drifted through the air of the room, filling the small space completely.  
  
"Would you care to dance?" She offered Fleur her hand, delighted when the platinum-blond accepted.  
  
They danced. Fleur loved to dance. The torchlight flickered, casting delicate shadows on the wall like a silent movie projector. The world was bright and alive, and she was happy.  
  
She was perfect.  
  
-owari-  
  
As a wiccan, I believe that giving something a name gives it power, so Roger remains unnamed in this fic, seeing as he has absolutely no power over Fleur. 


End file.
